Last month, some Democratic Party activists and their allies filed two lawsuits against the new district boundaries for North Carolina U.S. House seats and legislative seats. The cases are in state court and are called Dickson v Rucho, and North Carolina State Conference of NAACP v North Carolina.

The boundaries were drawn by the Republican-majority state legislature, and the lawsuits charge that the boundaries violate the State Constitution because they split too many communities and counties unnecessarily, and also that too many districts are either overwhelmingly black or overwhelming white. See this story from last week, describing the lawsuits.

On December 19, a lower state court held a scheduling conference in the case, and set an oral argument for January 12 on the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuits. If the state fails to win that, then there will be a trial, probably in March 2012 at the earliest. North Carolina’s primary is set for May 8, but if there is a trial, it seems very likely the primary will need to be postponed. If that happens, the state will be forced to extend the independent candidate deadline to a later date. Currently, independent candidate petitions are due June 14. Court precedents in the 4th circuit say that the independent candidate petition deadline cannot be earlier than the primary. Any extension of the petition deadline would help. North Carolina independent candidate petition requirements are so bad, no independent has ever qualified for any statewide office (except President), and none has ever appeared on a government-printed ballot for U.S. House either. In 2004, when redistricting was delayed, the state temporariy set the independent candidate petition deadline in July.